Should all political ads be elminated, instead, televised debates and campaigning only?

[Skip Intro]

Poll question: Should all political ads be elminated, instead, televised debates and campaigning only?

Set the qualification bar for being included in the debates pretty low, so that serious candidates from the libertarian and other parties are represented? Let the voters decide on this exposure to the candidates alone? Takes the money out of elections entirely. No election bought. No mail. No phone calls. Just the debates and the on the ground campaigning. What do you think?

[kdt]

1. yes

some ads are ridiculous. Saw a Meg Whitman ad of her lying and a graphic of her nose growing larger and larger.

[MadMaddie]

2. On the violation of free speech

We the individual taxpayer cannot afford to buy commerical ads. With the Supreme Court ruling that companies can spend as much as they want on these efforts it has given them a unfair advantage over we the people. That is why the ads should be illegal.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

17. That's why we donate to groups

Remember, Obama made the vast majority of his campaign contributions from individuals.

[Yeshuah Ben Joseph]

3. Everything needs to go back the way it was before Reagan.

Specifically in this case, debates which are actually debates, sponsored & moderated by the League of Women Voters or some other non partisan organization. Each candidate gets a half hour of TV time to make their own case, no ads allowed apart from these infomercials.

Which still leaves the corporate financing and electronic voting fraud issues to be resolved, but it's a good start.

[Skip Intro]

8. Wow. I didn't know it was that way before Reagan.

That's a little before my political awakening. Well yeah, we need to return to that.

What's left for the corporations to finance if there are no ads, though?

Electronic voting fraud. Yeah, that's a whole different thing.

[PDJane]

4. Bring back the fairness doctrine.

Make sure that there are equal rules, equal time, and make sure they disclose donors.

But first bring back the fairness doctrine.

[Ineeda]

5. And apply truth in advertising rules to all political statements.

Like that would ever happen!:rofl:

[PDJane]

9. *snert*

you owe me a keyboard......and you can get another cup of tea.

[Nye Bevan]

11. What media would you apply this to? Broadcast only? Cable too? Radio? Satellite?

Internet TV? Websites?

[PDJane]

15. Everything.

And please don't tell me it can't be done.

Moreover, there should be public financing of elections, and a much shorter election season...it's not necessary to hammer at one another from one election to the next.

[Drale]

6. Yes

although anyone who decides who to vote for based on a TV commercial is not very bright to begin with.

[alfredo]

7. Another solution

http://fairelectionsnow.org/

[Nye Bevan]

10. That's how it works in the UK.

No political TV ads, at least. Which is so nice for TV viewers that I am tempted to support the concept, but am unable to because I believe that the right to free speech is more important than my desire to avoid political ads.

[Jamastiene]

12. Yes, but make sure

their voting record is made available as well. If they have not previously been in, then some background on them (not handpicked by them) should be shared as well. The voters should be allowed hear what they have to say on the issues and get to see the good, the bad, and the ugly about each candidate before going to the voting booth.

Ads on television just annoy people and they are so repetitive. They don't really show any unbiased facts about the politicians. That is the problem with them.

[ShadowLiberal]

13. It would never be doable even if everyone agreed to try it out

Such a system would never work, even if we had a Supreme Court willing to push for/enforce the rules of such a system. I mean how would you get around these issues?

1) Ok so we let all serious candidates debate, so how do parties pick a 'serious candidate'?

2) You can't enforce no advertising for the election, because for one thing the Internet would do it anyway no matter how hard you tried to stop it, lots of blogs and sites met to influence your vote in the elections would show up, even if you try to constantly shut down such illegal advertising the message would still get across to enough people. Also what about political blogs like Daily Kos for example, sure look like advertising to me. It's not a phone call either, but it speaks to others to send a message.

3) Fox News, and other politically biased media on the TV and Radio. That does more damage to candidates and our democracy then campaign cash in a lot of cases, they'll continue to tell people what to think and become even stronger without money being involved.

4) The regular news is biased in favor of controversy and what will bring in ratings now, hence they tend to try to reinforce the political mood. I mean look at how they jumped on the bash the stimulus and bash health care trains, more often then not they were content to just air the lies about those things without correcting them. That to amounts to the same kind of TV ads your system would ban, your system would make these powers even stronger.

5) What about going around campaigning? You aren't clear on this, but you ban other parts of campaigning, like phone calls which are used to get out the vote on election day.

6) There's also problems with debates, look at some of the debates during the presidential primary in 08, remember when the media spent the first third of a democratic debate asking Hillary/Obama/Edwards all 'gotcha' questions about nonissues met to get them to say something stupid to make a headline, rather then to discuss actual policy issues? Until the debate format is changed to let/make candidates get into real detail about serious solutions to our problems, we won't get much value from debates.

7) I recall reading that the first presidential debate aired on TV was Kennedy vs Nixon, the people watching TV thought Kennedy was the clear winner, the people listening to the radio thought Nixon was the clear winner. You know why? The visuals, the TV people helped Kennedy prepare himself to look good up on stage, Nixon didn't get such help, and I think he was even sick during the debate which made him look even worse in the visuals. Like it or not, stupid things decide in the American People's minds who won a debate, not the logical things.

[HopeHoops]

14. I voted "yes" even though it is a CLEAR violation of the 1st Amendment.

But damn would it go a long way toward getting us on track to actually discussing issues that matter. The entire political process has become a mirror of SNL's Point-Counterpoint - "Jane, you ignorant slut".

[AsahinaKimi]

16. I hate the Meg Whitman ads

On dailymotion.com and Youtube. Trying to watch a show and those pop up. Makes you want to scream.

[Initech]

18. The only way to run a campaign in California is a smear campaign. I say get rid of all the ads.